Researchers achieve first successful communication between dreaming individuals

In a nutshell: Researchers at a California-based sleep startup claim it's possible to communicate with others while dreaming. Not only is it possible, it has been done in the real world, according to REMspace.

The experiment involved participants utilizing specialized equipment including sensors and earbuds. On September 24, one participant sleeping at home induced lucid dreaming, a state in which you are aware that you are dreaming. It is apparently a trainable skill, although I have only ever personally experienced it a handful of times throughout my life.

On the night of the 24th when the REMspace participant entered this state, the connected hardware they were wearing pinged a remote server that generated a random Remmyo word (Remmyo is a type of dream language that is detectable using sensors). The word was sent to the earbuds the person was wearing, and they repeated it in their dream.

The dreamer's response – the Remmyo word – was then captured and stored on the server. Eight minutes later, another participant entered a lucid dream and received the stored message from the first user. When she woke, she confirmed the word – successfully demonstrating the first-ever "chat" exchange between two dreaming participants.

REMspace said two other participants were also able to communicate with its server while dreaming.

The startup's founder and CEO, Michael Raduga, said communicating in dreams seemed like science fiction yesterday. "Tomorrow, it will be so common we won't be able to imagine our lives without this technology," the executive added.

Raduga said the capability opens the door to countless commercial applications, but stopped short of giving any specific examples. "We believe that REM sleep and related phenomena, like lucid dreams, will become the next big industry after AI," he noted.

While no doubt fascinating, it is also a bit frightening. The idea of commercializing dreams sounds ripe for misuse and if we're being force-fed content even while we are sleeping, when will we ever be able to truly unplug and get any actual rest?

REMspace's next milestone is to demonstrate real-time communication in lucid dreams. While far more ambitious, the company believes they are only a few months away from achieving this goal.

Image credit: Dan Counsell